Artangel

Had a very productive day in Manchester the other week having a meeting with a senior lecturer at the University about research and practice as research as within my present job we are to begin doing this in a formal manner which is difficult to get ones head around as to what they want. In actual fact they want what I do already but with some written work to support it so all good. What was most inspiring was to share the meeting with colleagues! Having run the course on my own for so long its great to have other input, three heads are better than one. even more wonderful was to have someone with no knowledge of millinery really enthused by what we do, and how important it was to promote the cross disciplinary nature of millinery and the niche aspect needed preserving.

So after an  excellent brainstorming/mind mapping session we visited the  Whitworth Art Gallery to look at an exhibition of the group 'Artangel' curated by Mary Griffiths who I had had a tutorial with at testing time on the MA. Its always interesting to have different perspectives on an exhibition and space.
 Though the first piece of work didn't bode well as it gave us a headache and fear of migraine,  Tony Oursler Talking Light.

Francis Alys Guards 2004

I really liked the Francis Alys piece called Guards where he he got each member of the regiment to walk into london and meet at certain points and carry on in formation until they were a full regiment. the precision the noise, the imagery, organisation and maps of the route planning, I found fascinating.

still from 1395 days without red

One also realises the British sensibility to conform we went to watch the short film '1395 days without red' about the sniper alleys in Sarajevo in the Bosnian conflict. It was beautifully filmed and highly evocative yet i felt it had shared the experience and understanding of the fear in half an hour as did my colleagues; yet it went on for 20 more minutes we all were too shy to say actually I am done now. Though on reflection those 20 minutes illustrated the monotony of those times.


Anyway well worth a trip I gained a lot and the cafe at the Whitworth is very lovely.